[78-L] AM Radio (and the music) is now dead

[Michael Biel]

Michael Biel wrote:
> > It is worth noting that none of the NYC independent stations you
> > mentioned were "formatted" stations playing only one type of music for
> > the entire day. That type of specialization programming only came in
> > the 1950s. EVERY station had a something-for-everybody format prior to
> > that.

From: "Kristjan Saag" <saag at telia.com>
> So what happened? Was it the Roosevelt era that came to an end or what?

The number of radio stations in the U.S. exploded in the decade after
the war.  Although we think of that era as being the growth of TV, radio
actually grew at a greater pace during that time.  There were fewer than
900 radio stations when the war ended, and by the end of the 40s that
number had doubled, and then doubled again in the following few years. 
There were about 4000 stations by 54 or 55.  

Meanwhile TV started with 13 stations and had about 40 by 1948 when
suddenly the FCC stopped taking applications because they realized that
RCA had lied to them about how far stations in that band could reach and
they would have to re-do the entire allocation charts.  It took them
four years, and by 1952 there were only 110 TV stations on the air.  It
wasn't until 1954 thru 1957 that the next batch of TV stations hit the
air, and there were HUGE parts of the U.S. that didn't get their first
TV station until long after the most famous early TV programs had left
the air!!  

But since the TV stations were in the largest cities, many of the best
radio stars were leaving radio, which left the radio networks having to
develop new programs and new stars.  But most of the thousands of new
radio stations could not affiliate with the networks because there
already were affiliates in their area, so these new stations had to
figure out what to program.  Cities that only had 2 or 3 stations now
had 8, so specialized formatting turned out to be the way to break out
of the pack.  

In areas like mine in Kentucky the small towns were getting their first
stations -- only one per town -- and these stations often kept to the
something-for-everything formula.  When I moved to the small town of
Morehead, Kentucky, the AM-FM station WMOR was still simulcasting the
same programs on both, and were still doing different formats at
different times of the day.  Farm programs in the morning and at noon,
housewife programs in mid morning and early afternoon, rock after
school, middle of the road in the evening, sign off of FM at midnight
(AM signed off at sunset, which varied from 4:15 to 8:45 depending on
the season).  And 30 miles to the West was another town with a similar
station, 30 miles to the East was yet another, and so on and so on.  

But New York City had 30 stations, so the formats were day-long and
quite varied.  Now we have about 13,000 stations and except for some
listener supported stations and student-run stations, all are
uni-formatted with just one type of music or talk all day and all night.
 


> Meanwhile, back in the jungle (Europe) public service stations continued 
> their "something-for-everybody"-format and no one complained, except the 
> advertisers. Poor fellas, how many millions didn't the idea of public
> service steal from Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola and...Volvo?  Kristjan 

It was fascinating watching Britain get Independent Local Radio in the
1980s, Austria getting just a very few local radio stations in the 90s,
and the former Commie countries getting anarchy radio in the 90s. 
Within each state in Germany there have been some supermergers, such as
Radio Bayran, and in Austria some nationwide local station chains like
Antenne.  I miss not having a chance to be in Europe during most of the
past decade, just having the internet to kinda see what is happening.

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com